Airtel sues watchdog over Safaricom’s ‘unhealthy’ competition

An Airtel shop. Airtel has sued the Competition Authority over allegations that Safaricom is abusing its supremacy in the Kenyan market.

Airtel resolved to halt the filing of more evidence Tuesday in a case which they have accused the competition regulator of preferring Safaricom.
The communication company has accused the Competition Authority of Kenya for leniency in cracking the whip against Safaricom who according to Airtel have been imposing unfair selling and purchasing prices.

The communication company accused the competition watchdog of leniency to crack the whip on Safaricom who according to Airtel have been imposing unfair selling and purchasing prices.

“Safaricom is generally restricting the market to unhealthy competition thereby closing the market outlets,” Airtel alleges.

On November 13 and 18 2013, the competition authority requested Airtel to provide evidence to support their claim that Safaricom was abusing its dominance in the market.

The regulation body thus launched its own investigation summoning both Safaricom and Airtel’s agents in various towns across the country.

Its investigation found out that Safaricom was infringing the market through MPESA money transfer and therefore asked the company to respond to the allegations.

Safaricom then scheduled a hearing conference inviting both the competition authority and Airtel but which did not take place.

“The hearing conference did not take off on various dates due to disparate requests by both parties,” Mr Francis Wang’ombe, a Director General for the regulator said.

He said that when the hearing session was scheduled for October 29 2013, Safaricom wrote to the regulatory body indicating that it intended to initiate discussions directed at resolving the issues raised by Airtel.

“Airtel acceded to the Safaricom request in order to explore the possibility of addressing the complaint in the shortest time possible,” Mr Wang’ombe alleged.

He said that Airtel misunderstood a letter written by the competition authority terminating the hearing conference in order to commence actualisation of the dispute resolution process.

According to the director general, the competition authority will not be controlled in a manner that contravenes the constitution or shows favouritism to some and not others.

Airtel had asked the market regulator to punish Safaricom for what it termed as anti-competitive tendencies.

RESTRICTING COMPETITION

It accused Safaricom of restricting competition through foul plays and excluding Airtel products from their retail outlets country wide.

However, consent was entered by Airtel and the regulatory authority not to file any further papers or written submissions in court pending the outcome of the settlement discussion.

“We have discussed the matter with a view of resolving the issue,” the Airtel counsel told the court.

Justice David Odunga thus ordered that consent be upheld as an order of the court.
The case will be mentioned on May 5 to seek the progress made in resolving the matter.